NOISE: AN ARTS BLOG

How do you define "gentrification"? There is the "official" definition, here cribbed from the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary website: "the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents."...

When it comes to film, representations of women are for the most part, epic fails. They're almost always afforded roles like a flatly characterized romantic partner or their actions and emotions are...

The White House released a video yesterday in which Barack Obama talks with David Simon about "The Wire," Simon's five-season drama dissecting the many institutional problems in big American cities,...

Baltimore's Sun Club had two official showcases at this year's South by Southwest Music Conference, but the audience for the second showcase was limited by circumstances beyond the band's control. The...

"We were angry. Maybe the anger is what carried us through and made us fearless," says Alice Wolfson, an activist who was a member of D.C. Women's Liberation and The Daughters of Lilith collective, as...

The history of blending classical music and rock 'n' roll is a story of blunders and stumbles. If it's not symphony orchestras turning rock hits into middle-of-the-road, easy-listening pops concerts,...

My son Watson is a Brian Regan superfan. "Mom, Brian Regan is just about the best comedian there ever was," he informed me on the way to school the other morning. Because he's 11, he doesn't have that...

Eric Church is a talented fellow. Tuesday night at the Verizon Center in Washington, the country superstar showed off a terrific tenor voice, a charismatic stage presence, and a crackerjack Southern-...

Robert Motherwell's 'Africa' is a large black-and-white painting of a bridge from the point of view of something much smaller, such as a wading bird. Or maybe, with its sinewy shapes, 'Africa' is more...

Early on in Dennis Hopper's "Out of the Blue," teenaged Cebe (Linda Manz) observes that her fathers, Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, and Elvis Presley, have abandoned her, in that order. To her, the men...

We are only a few weeks away from the release of "Gliss Riffer," the latest album from Dan Deacon. But if you can't wait that long, listen to the latest single from the album, 'Learning To Relax,' a...

Today, maddeningly slept-on songwriter and local hero of weird country Zane Campbell released his self-titled album, produced by City Paper contributor Travis Kitchens and backed by a band featuring...

Edgar Froese, founder of Tangerine Dream, died last week, and part of his legacy was an impact on film scoring that has yet to be fully unpacked. Along with John Carpenter, Giorgio Moroder, Vangelis,...

"Where'd all the rock bands go?" your ding-dong of a friend'll ask you as he pulls the ghost of Jimmy Page's peen out of his mouth and climbs across the recliner to crank up the stereo and get the Led...

Sara Lautman wanted to screen just one movie: "Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby," a 1999 film featuring Natasha Lyonne and Vincent Gallo that tracked the escapades of two women on the run from a...

Veteran purveyors of all things dark and heavy, A389 Recordings return this year with a scaled-down but still-crucial edition of their annual A389 Bash. A tradition that is now over a decade strong,...

I first started thinking about the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti when I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than 20 years ago now. Space, in the arid high desert, seemed so much different than...

From a crazily crappy karaoke take to a blunted soul-rap remix from BadBadNotGood, City Paper listens to every cover, remix, refix, music-video riff, and mash-up of Future Islands' 'Seasons (Waiting...

When I talked to Laura Lippman, David Simon's wife, about her book "After I'm Gone" last February, she noted how strange it was to "hear so much 'Wire' lingo in day-to-day life from strangers who have...

Local dogs and their humans gathered at Penthouse Gallery in the Copycat building Friday night to celebrate the opening of "Pooches at the Penthouse," curated by Process Collective and Alloverstreet...

"Serial" is a podcast in which host Sarah Koenig details her own investigation into a potential wrongful imprisonment. It is the biggest podcast of all time. Before reigning podcast champion and "Best...

Who killed advertising superstar Laura Hunt? That's the question New York City detective McPherson (Dana Andrews) is trying to answer in this 1944 thriller. With his hat perpetually at a rakish tilt...

Try and imagine what the inevitable live-action Hollywood remake of "Akira" will look like: directed by some Hollywood worker bee after Darren Aronofsky is fired a few days in from a script written by...

Earlier this morning, Adult Swim premiered a beautifully animated and wonderfully trippy video for 'Boys Latin,' the second single from Baltimore-bred avant-pop musician and Animal Collective member...

Since it is the season of dying and resurrecting wine gods, I wandered over to the Walters to see some of the Dionysus black-figure vase paintings. But when I got there, I was captivated by 'Isis with...

Official accounts of the War on Drugs in Mexico, Central America, and Colombia tend to tell tales of massive cartels fighting each other over territory and trade routes. This narrative dominates our...